He looked around as he spoke, and, finding what he sought, picked it up. It was a small scarf, a narrow bit of Roman silk carrying a vivid stripe. He held this before her. "Something may happen some day, and you may want me in a hurry," he said. "I have observed with regret that you have no telephone in this room, but we can get on without one. My mirror reflects your window, you know," he added a little self-consciously. "If you need me, hang up this scarf. Just drape it over this big window-catch. If I ever see it, I'll come prancing across the square like a knight to your rescue." "Thank you." She gave him her hand and the enigmatic smile that always subtly but intensely annoyed him. There was something in that smile which he did not understand, but he suspected that it held an element of amused understanding. So might Doris, years hence, smile at her little son. "She thinks I'm a reed," Laurie reflected as he waited in the outer hall for the elevator. "I don't blame her. I've been a perfectly good reed ever since I met her friend Bertie." His thoughts, thus drawn to Shaw, dwelt on that ophidian personality. When the elevator arrived he was glad to recognize the familiar face of Sam. "Yaas, sah," that youth affably explained, with a radiant exhibition of teeth, "it's Henry's night _off_, so I has to be _on_." They were alone in the car. Laurie, lighting a cigarette, asked a casual question. "There's a plump person in blue serge who hangs around here a good deal," he remarked, indifferently. "Does he live in the building?" "The one wid eyes what sticks out?" "That's the one." Sam's jaw set. "No, sah, dat party don' live yere. An' ef he don' stop hangin' 'round yere, somethin's gwine t' happen to dat man," he robustly asserted. "What's he after?" "I dunno. I only seen him twicet. Las' time he was sneakin' fum de top flo'. But I cert'n'y don' like dat man's looks!" Nothing more was to be learned from Sam. Laurie thoughtfully walked out into the square. He had taken not more than a dozen steps when a voice, strange yet unpleasantly familiar, accosted him. "Good-evening, Mr. Devon," it said. Laurie turned sharply. Herbert Ransome Shaw was walking at his side, which was as it should be. It was to meet and talk with Herbert Ransome Shaw that he had so abruptly ended his call. "Look here," he said at once, "I want a few words with you." "Exactly." Shaw spoke with suave affability. "It is to have a few words that I am here." "Where can we go?" Shaw appeared to reflect. "Do you mind coming to my rooms?" Laurie hesitated. "I live quite near, and my quarters, though plain, are comfortable." Anger surged up in the young man beside him. There was something almost insulting in Shaw's manner as he uttered the harmless words, and in the reassuring yet doubtful intonation of his voice. "Confound him!" Laurie told himself. "The hound is actually hinting that I'm afraid to go!" Aloud, he said brusquely, "All right."